Tuesday 24 May 2016

What is a Reprobate Mind?

Here's another reason why people can't understand how wondrous and beneficial salvation from sin, which leads to hell, actually is. Advanced sinners can't think straight. It's as simple as that.

The first chapter of the Apostle Paul's letter to the church at Rome explains this quite clearly. After the preliminary greetings, he gets into the reason why people are so stuck in their sins.

The dichotomy between those who live by their righteous faith is then set against the habitual wickedness of sinners. Verses eighteen and nineteen in the Bible in Basic English read, "For there is a revelation of the wrath of God from heaven against all the wrongdoing and evil thoughts of men who keep down what is true by wrongdoing; Because the knowledge of God may be seen in them, God having made it clear to them."

Verses twenty to twenty-three explain how God revealed himself through nature but people suppressed this knowledge with their lamebrain philosophies. "For from the first making of the world, those things of God which the eye is unable to see, that is, his eternal power and existence, are fully made clear, he having given the knowledge of them through the things which he has made, so that men have no reason for wrongdoing: Because, having the knowledge of God, they did not give glory to God as God, and did not give praise, but their minds were full of foolish things, and their hearts, being without sense, were made dark. Seeming to be wise, they were in fact foolish, And by them the glory of the eternal God was changed and made into the image of man who is not eternal, and of birds and beasts and things which go on the earth."

Instead of zapping them with lightning or fire from heaven, this is what the Lord did. Verses twenty-four to twenty-eight explain what resulted from humanity's errant cravings. "For this reason God gave them up to the evil desires of their hearts, working shame in their bodies with one another: Because by them the true word of God was changed into that which is false, and they gave worship and honour to the thing which is made, and not to him who made it, to whom be blessing for ever. So be it. For this reason God gave them up to evil passions, and their women were changing the natural use into one which is unnatural: And in the same way the men gave up the natural use of the woman and were burning in their desire for one another, men doing shame with men, and getting in their bodies the right reward of their evil-doing. And because they had not the mind to keep God in their knowledge, God gave them up to an evil mind, to do those things which are not right;"

Paul names the sins of these wicked individuals from verses twenty-nine to thirty-one. He ends the chapter by showing how these reprobates want others to sink to the same level of depravity that they've sunk to. "Who, though they have knowledge of the law of God, that the fate of those who do these things is death, not only go on doing these things themselves, but give approval to those who do them."

We see this going on in the world today through the LGBTQ movement as well as the rejection of traditional values and even physical gender. Sexually-transmitted diseases such as AIDS have taken many lives and ruined others, all for the sake of momentary human pleasure. These deluded people, along with their backers, are too dense to see what they're doing to themselves and others.

If you are rebelling against God and refusing his generous offer of eternal life in heaven, consider what you're giving up. Genuine Christians have satisfaction in this life and an eternity of bliss to look forward to. Those who reject Christ's rule have only dissatisfaction and eternal agony in hell awaiting them. Please be in the former group, not the latter.

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